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Old 09-01-2014, 07:34 PM
 
Location: Broomfield, Colorado
656 posts, read 1,334,410 times
Reputation: 868

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Quote:
Originally Posted by luvmyhoss View Post
we don't want to go.
That's it, just don't want to attend.
He lives very close to us. But we re not close to him.
Hmm we need a good reason but don't want to estrange anyone.
All the reason you need and then some, right there.
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Old 09-01-2014, 09:01 PM
 
Location: I live wherever I am.
1,935 posts, read 4,756,900 times
Reputation: 3317
Quote:
Originally Posted by luvmyhoss View Post
Nephew is getting married, but we don't want to go.
That's it, just don't want to attend.
He lives very close to us. But we re not close to him.
Hmm we need a good reason but don't want to estrange anyone.
I think you already do have a good reason. Think about why you don't want to go. It'd be one of two reasons - either you have something else you would rather do, though you aren't opposed to going to a wedding; or you really do not want to go to this wedding. (Maybe you hate weddings. Maybe there's someone you might run into at this particular wedding whom you don't want to see. Either way you wouldn't want to go even if you had nothing else to do.)

Whatever the reason is, get it into your mind and then call your nephew. Ask him why he wanted you to go to his wedding. His first reaction will be one of incredulity but press him for a real reason. "'Cuz you're my uncle" ain't good enough. Why does he want you there, personally, to see him commit himself to a 50-50 chance that he will remain with this lady until death do they part?

I don't like weddings. Never have. They're boring. I can't seem to enjoy them whether I'm a guest, the guy getting married, a groomsman, or the DJ. I've been in all four of those situations and there's nothing about a wedding reception that I like except the free food. To me, they seem like a gigantic outlay of money just to provide an evening where people can get drunk. A wedding should be a gathering of people whom the bride and groom want to be their support network. As in, if the marriage should ever have trouble and need support, the people in the audience as the couple says "I do" are the people to whom they can turn. If you don't think that you would want to be in that capacity, or that you would be capable of serving in that capacity should you be called upon to do so, then explain that you don't see why you should be goaded into coming.

But I still think there has to be a real reason. Sometimes people do invite others to their wedding just out of courtesy. I recall being invited to the wedding of a guy with whom I was friends in college but with whom I had not spoken in almost four years. It's not like anything came between us - we just drifted apart after he graduated. I attended, to reconnect with him... but I do remember being surprised. "You invited me to your wedding but you haven't once attempted to talk to me in the last four years?!" (Of course I didn't say that to him...)

If he would interpret your absence as a lack of support, and you wish to show your support, then do something for him that will demonstrate support. If you can't figure out what he would interpret as being supportive, ask him. It is entirely reasonable to dislike weddings. Ceremonies are often boring and full of vacuous traditional happenstances, and receptions are where a whole bunch of people who don't really know each other get to sit around in a room pulsing with loud music played by a DJ who is usually cheap and lousy, trying to figure out just how much longer they have to suffer through the mediocre food, rowdy children, and overplayed ear-splittingly loud music until they can leave without losing face in the eyes of the other attendees... or getting drunk.
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Old 09-01-2014, 09:43 PM
 
17,815 posts, read 25,531,360 times
Reputation: 36262
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkalot View Post
No its not VERY possible. Possible but not VERY.

MOST people get along with their siblings. MOST people like to go to weddings and see their relatives.

To the OP. You can't go through life only doing what you want to do. It only for a few hours. Enjoy the other people that are there if you don't like the nephew.
Exactly, OP sounds like the type who can't visit someone who is sick or dying because THEY don't like hospitals, guess what know one likes hospitals.

Sometimes in life you have to do for others. It's not always about what you want.

I find it very selfish to not go to a LOCAL wedding for a couple of hours.
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Old 09-01-2014, 09:57 PM
 
Location: California
37,055 posts, read 42,006,001 times
Reputation: 34868
Not wanting to go is a great reason to miss a wedding. WHY you don't want to go is nobody else's business either. I've been invited to many things I haven't gone to because I didn't want to for whatever reason, including weddings and one funeral. I guess I'm blessed with a high tolerance to guilt because I never even felt I had to explain myself.
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Old 09-01-2014, 11:11 PM
 
Location: Amongst the AZ Cactus
7,068 posts, read 6,426,584 times
Reputation: 7730
I'm willing to guess the main reason you asked the question is because you're concerned of what your nephew might think if you say you won't be attending.

Here's another way to look at it all in a very blunt/global sort of way:

Top 5 Regrets Of The Dying*|*Bronnie Ware

Check out the top regret of those who are dying:

"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Perhaps call the response you want to give as a good way to make the top regret not a prominent theme in your life.
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Old 09-02-2014, 03:02 AM
 
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,298 posts, read 14,114,363 times
Reputation: 8104
Quote:
Originally Posted by luvmyhoss View Post
Nephew is getting married, but we don't want to go.
That's it, just don't want to attend.
He lives very close to us. But we re not close to him.
Hmm we need a good reason but don't want to estrange anyone.
Tell him you don't feel good, you've just returned from a safari in Africa and are coughing up blood.
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Old 09-02-2014, 04:53 AM
Status: "Octopi tastes like snake" (set 21 days ago)
 
Location: in the miseries
3,573 posts, read 4,488,799 times
Reputation: 4401
Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin View Post
Exactly, OP sounds like the type who can't visit someone who is sick or dying because THEY don't like hospitals, guess what know one likes hospitals.

Sometimes in life you have to do for others. It's not always about what you want.

I find it very selfish to not go to a LOCAL wedding for a couple of hours.
Actually I'm very supportive, too much, so in that I usually do what's good for others,
Not for myself.
Don't care for the bride to be either.
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Old 09-02-2014, 06:17 AM
 
Location: St. Mary's County, Maryland
165 posts, read 193,734 times
Reputation: 321
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dissenter View Post
God, if people are going to be estranged by someone declining a wedding invitation from them because they have other to do, they have bigger problems, to say the least.
Absolutely.
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Old 09-02-2014, 07:16 AM
 
Location: I live wherever I am.
1,935 posts, read 4,756,900 times
Reputation: 3317
Quote:
Originally Posted by luvmyhoss View Post
Actually I'm very supportive, too much, so in that I usually do what's good for others,
Not for myself.
Don't care for the bride to be either.
Well there you go. If you're a musician, you're probably also reasonably eloquent and intelligent, so you could surely come up with a way to explain to your nephew WHY you don't like his bride-to-be... if you had to. I still say that you could explain your true reasoning and he shouldn't have a problem with it. If he has a problem with your honesty, would you rather be dishonest just to make your self-entitled nephew like you? (I know I wouldn't.)
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Old 09-02-2014, 07:21 AM
 
Location: Baltimore, MD
11,328 posts, read 9,214,917 times
Reputation: 52464
If you don't want any contact with them whatsoever then don't go. But do the right thing and be honest about it, not make up the excuses that have been given to you so far. Just tell them you can't make it and leave it at that. What that could mean is you don't have it in your heart to attend, or any number of reasons. End of story.

Personally, I'd suck it up and go. i did this about 2 years ago for a distant family member because I know they wanted me to attend. I hated it and was the first one to leave. But at least I showed up.
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